CrashPlan is a backup solution for endpoints. CrashPlan continuously backs up an end user's files and documents with no storage limitations. Up to 4 devices can be backed up under the same license. The data can be recovered via the CrashPlan agent installed on the machine or via the CrashPlan web console.
Organization Setup
ISC Client Care can assist you in the planning and setup of CrashPlan for your school or center. These are some of the primary decisions/options to consider when setting up a new instance of CrashPlan. Submit a ticket to ISC Client Care to get the planning discussion started.
- Identify the IT users in your organization who will be administering the CrashPlan accounts for your school or center. These people will be granted Org Admin access in the console.
- Decide whether you want to use Single Sign-On (SSO) for logins. The option to use PennKey SSO is available but requires that your users use the pennkey@upenn.edu format for their usernames. SSO should be used unless there is a pressing need to do otherwise. ISC Client Care can assist with any changes to SSO usage in the CrashPlan console.
- Billing occurs monthly, on a per-user basis. Charges only occur for user accounts with existing backups. Schools and centers are responsible for keeping their users and budget codes up-to-date in the CrashPlan console. If your school or center is billing each user separately to different budget codes, please enter the budget codes in the respective users' "External Reference" field. If billing all users to the same budget code within a CrashPlan organization or sub-organization, please enter the budget code in the "External Reference" field for the organization or sub-organization. If you have questions or wish to change the way in which your school or center is billed, please contact ISC Client Care for assistance.
- Decide whether it makes sense for your org to push the deployment to end-users or set them up individually in the CrashPlan system. Deployment options are here. See the "Deployment" section below for further details.
- Review the settings options and determine what fits best for your organization. These changes can be made by your Org Admins. ISC Client Care is happy to provide guidance for setting your options if you need assistance.
Scope of Backups
By default, CrashPlan is set to backup user profile data in the UserData (Windows) and Home Directory (macOS) locations. Additions or Global Exclusions to backed-up items can be set according to file name, extension or path via the Device Backup Defaults settings.
By default, the installation is at the system level. The installation script can be changed to install at a per-user level; this may be needed in cases where a machine has multiple users who need to have their data separated from each other. The limitation of the per-user installation method is that it will only back up the system when the user is logged in.
CrashPlan does NOT support the backup of UNC paths.
Deployment
CrashPlan can be deployed via a push with a script or by setting up accounts manually. Deployment scripts can be set to scrape the username and home directory from the device and automatically add the user and/or device to CrashPlan. Due to account access limitations, ISC will need to add deployment scripts to the CrashPlan console. If you need to modify or add new deployment scripts, ISC Client Care will be happy to assist. We also have several sample working deployment scripts that may suit your needs.
When scraping usernames in a script, if your organization uses PennKey SSO, the email addresses for the usernames need to be pennkey@upenn.edu format; the email username CANNOT include the third-level domain (e.g. pennkey@isc.upenn.edu).
One benefit of using an installation script is the inclusion of the Code42 server address in the agent. If you need to input the server address directly, it is clients.us2.crashplan.com.
Please note that Macintosh systems need to allow the CrashPlan app Full Disk Access in order to back up most protected user data. Many remote deployment solutions cannot do this on their own, so you may need to use an MDM product like Jamf in concert. The CrashPlan web console will warn you if you have any Macs in your organization that are not granting the app full disk access.
Replacing Devices
Some schools may redeploy or reimage machines. CrashPlan has provided documentation to address this scenario.
If you are deploying CrashPlan on a previously-enrolled device, all previous traces of CrashPlan and User Data have to be removed to prevent conflicts. For some, it might be easier to completely reimage the device prior to re-enrollment. You can contact ISC Client Care if you need direction about your specific circumstances.
Resources
CrashPlan has useful help pages built into their tool. If you are having trouble in CrashPlan, click on the “Help” icon from wherever you are in the console and you will be directed to a related support article. Other key pages are linked below:
CrashPlan Administrative Console